Road Trip! Two words that can inspire equal parts of joy and terror. Any soccer parent knows the inevitability of a road trip each soccer season and possibly even several times during a season. Before I even thought about soccer, I grew up taking road trips. Every summer we would pack into the family car and take off for six weeks traveling the highways and byways of America. There were seven of us. When I saw "National Lampoon's Vacation" I relived these family trips complete with boxy station wagon, picnics at rest stops, and hours of bickering. We rarely stayed in motels, opting instead for camping or staying with relatives. My dad created a super tent by sewing together two smaller tents. Every morning after breakfast we had the routine of rolling up the sleeping bags, disassembling the cots, sweeping out the tent and then folding it precisely so that it would fit into the canvas duffle bag from my dad's time in the Navy. My mother cooked for seven of us on a Coleman propane two burner stove and washed the dishes in bucket. Even if we did stay in a hotel we kids all slept in the same room – three in one bed and two in the other. As the only girl I found it less and less ideal as I entered my teen years!

But I do have the privilege of boasting that I have driven and stayed in every state in the continental United States. We visited tourist attractions, would-be tourist attractions, and questionable tourist attractions.

With this background, I comfortably fell into the routine of soccer road trips. Each one had its unique joys and its unique terrors. There's the trip where the truck in front of me fishtailed into the median strip during a snow storm. And there's the trip where Bryce and Bruce sat for four hours dead still on the Indiana freeway wondering if they would get to the tournament on time. Once following a tournament in Memphis, we took a small detour to go to Metropolis, Illinois, the "home" of Superman. We've had flat tires, wrong turns (even on a tour bus), and mechanical breakdowns. We have rescued players from cars stranded on our route and our boys have been rescued when we were stranded. I am increasingly grateful for my AAA membership which has saved us with a tow or brought us a spare tire or, back before GPS, provided us with Triptiks so we could navigate and learn where the chicken who played tic-tac-toe resided.

Packing the car for a soccer road trip didn't require any camping equipment, but as the quality and quantity of electronic devices increased we had to be sure we had the proper cables, plug-ins, movies, games, music, headphones, and controllers. I can tell you the location of Best Buys and Radio Shacks throughout the Midwest because invariably I would hear from the back seat, "You've got to be kidding," and know that we needed to find some accessory as quickly as possible or I would have to deal with petulant teenagers. My admonishment to "Look out the windows - that's what my brothers and I did" was met with eye rolls. The Alphabet or License Plate Games could not compete with "Weekend at Bernie's" or "Mario Kart." I had to be sure to have enough snacks, drinks and fruit. We needed blankets, pillows and books. Of course, we also needed soccer gear, which we double and triple checked was in their bags. But no matter how many lists we made and how often we checked, we couldn't do anything about Bryce leaving his gloves in the hotel room.

Hopefully the boys will remember the best times of these trips. Some towns we revisited over the years, but no trip was identical. We took teammates with us on some trips, drove straight through on other trips, and made a vacation of it on still other trips. The car we took on all these road trips still functions, although just barely. The check engine light remains lit for a non-essential part and we keep the car within the immediate tri-county area of Milwaukee so our mechanic is never far away from attending the patient.

Soccer has tons of advantages, one of which is the road trip. Parents may not always want to hit the road because trips can be hours of boredom punctuated by bursts of fun. However, you can make sure the fun happens with some planning and a willingness to act spontaneously if a special moment arises. No matter how many trips you end up taking, cherish them, because I can guarantee that they will be part of important memories.